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Sunday, 24 December 2017

It seems to be a
pattern with me and Jump series - I try them out, don't get on with them at
first, then return to them after a while and end up loving them. Or at least
enjoying them quite a bit. It happened with One Piece, Bleach and in a way with
good ole Dragonball.

So this is the new hit
shounen action series. It's doing pretty well, with quite a lot of promotion, a
third season and movie recently announced and a video game in the works too.

I tried out the first
few manga chapters months ago, but couldn't get over the weird art, especially
of the true form of the #1 hero, and found the pacing very weird. That may have
been down to poor-quality translation, though. But I eventually tried the
anime, and found it to be a lot of fun.

The show's world has a
lot of echoes of Hunter x Hunter and One Punch Man (OPM itself being in many
ways a tribute to HxH in any case), with a little Tiger and Bunny thrown into
the mix, all of which could be said to be riffs based on a premise set up by
X-Men.

Boku no Hero Academia
shows us a world where 80% of kids born have a 'quirk'. A mutant power,
basically. This can be just about anything, from super strength to invisibility,
with some very weird and inventive ones in the mix too. Our hero, little
Midoriya Izuku, or 'Deku' as he gets called by the school bullies, is one of
the 20% who are quirkless. This is a shame because he loves heroes and could be
called a fanboy in the depth of his knowledge. The show actually uses the English
word ‘Nerd’ for him, rather than ‘otaku’. A chance encounter with a prominent
hero leads to him being bestowed great powers - so he enters a school for the
gifted and through a series of exams similar to those in Naruto (even being
interrupted by a more serious clash just like Naruto's) proves himself to his
heroes and his former bully.

There are a slew of
anime just like this. A school for the gifted where the sweet-natured,
unassuming one ends up the centre of attention and gains great power to use
against real bad guys can be seen in, for example, Gakuen Alice, Soul Eater and
Mahou Shoujotai Arusu. The basic idea is common in the west too, not only in
X-Men but Monsters' High, Miss Peregrine's, The Incredibles et al. It's all
basically riffing on superhero tropes and there will be thousands more
iterations of the same thing in years to come.

But while HeroAka
treads familiar ground, it does it well. Midoriya is an extremely likeable
protagonist, not only sweet and insecure (and adorable even if everyone keeps
describing him as 'plain') but generous, hard-working and ambitious. It's
interesting that at first he's given a power he can't really control and causes
him great pain, because that opens up dynamics about self-preservation and
sacrifice, though by the end of season 2 Midoriya has moved beyond that.

The supporting cast is
also great. The teachers remind me of Soul Eater's, unhinged and often goofy
but awesome to see in action. There are lots of interesting fellow students,
from major players with daddy issues or anger issues or abandonment issues to
very enteratining ensemble characters like the frog girl or the bird-headed kid
with a shadow beast living inside him.

Compared with other strong Shounen
series, the bad guys are currently a bit lacking. I like the main antagonist’s
design a lot but much of his story arc so far has been about finding his true
purpose, and a villain who lacks a clear purpose is not a very impressive one.
There are other villains here, too, the charismatic and interesting Hero Killer
who sadly pales beside One Punch Man’s treatment of a similar misguided
philosophy, and All For One who so far is just a shadowy figure pulling the
strings with a motive apparently rather like Orochimaru’s in Naruto. There’s a
lot of potential for the main villain to become very interesting, but so far it’s
only potential. Then again, HunterxHunter, Naruto and Soul Eater were slow in
revealing their primary antagonists, and D. Gray-Man waited a very long time to
add nuance to theirs so I can see him getting depth later. If mangaka Horikoshi
Kouhei fails to deliver on that front, though, it will be a major letdown.

Nothing here is
groundbreaking, but the best shounen series seldom are. We've had pirate stories
and ninja stories and stories about Son Goku before, but the best Jump series
make those familiar storytelling realms their own in quirky, inventive ways.
The same can be said for Boku no Hero Academia, and it's hard not to root for
lil' Midoriya-shounen, whether he's getting all determined, fighting down tears
or reaching out to someone in need.

As for that weird
character design that got me so hung up at the start, well, I guess in the
anime it just about works. Just about.

Friday, 22 December 2017

This happens quite a
lot with movies I only watch on a plane - they don't look good enough to see on
release but actually end up being really good. I honestly thought this looked
terrible from trailers, especially with such an ugly baby, and basically only
watched it because the main character Tim was adorable.

In fact this was a
clever, sweet and well-made animation that probably deserves more recognition
than it got...though I did see quite a few reaction images of the triplets
online.

One of the best factors
here is that the premise gives a strong message to kids with new siblings - the
whole premise stems from how 7-year-old Tim reacts to the new baby of his
family getting more love from his parents. That jealousy is a good thing for
kids in that position to get to discuss.

There's a lot that
surprised me here. Funny jokes and pop culture references to everything from
Indiana Jones (brilliantly combined with Mouse Trap) to Glengarry Glen Ross.
Poignant moments mostly marked by 'Blackbird' by the Beatles. Strong
performances and fast-paced animation. There's a few adult jokes that raise a
smile, like references to the things that can go on at work retreats, though in
light of the recent scandals from Hollywood, I'm not sure having Alec Baldwin
and a child actor have an exchange along the lines of 'Suck it!' 'I'm not gonna suck that, I don't know where it's been.' 'You want to find out where babies come from, don't
you?' was probably not the best idea. And they almost cast Kevin Spacey in the
movie too…

Tim is one of the most
adorable kids in CG - being younger than most of the kids in these films, he's
adorable, needing his hand held on the plane and not knowing how to ride a
bike. Ralph Bakshi’s grandson Miles gives a pretty adorable performance, too,
playing younger than his age during recording. Perhaps the best element having
such a young protagonist is that being so concerned with the imagination of a
child, there are lots of sequences that experiment with changes of animation
style or weird character designs, which really take advantage of the medium.

I
doubt that many people will give this film a chance, but that's a shame because
it's much better than I'd anticipated.

Wednesday, 20 December 2017

I enjoy watching the Despicable Memovies, though not enough
to actually watch them anywhere but planes.

This one was another
enjoyable diversion, though lacked the big heart and emotional pay-offs of the
other films. Quite a lot happens at once - Gru is reunited with his brother,
who's a good businessman but terrible villain - while also having a vendetta
against a new supervillain with an entertaining 80s theme and the voice of Randy Marsh.

The kids have their own
stories - little Agnes is adorable looking for a unicorn while Margo gets
accidentally engaged. There's also a new agency boss who seems like a bit of an
offensive stereotype to me. Oh, and the minions quit and go on various episodic
adventures. Everything comes together for a fun big climax with lots of action
and lasers and screaming, and it's definitely enjoyable, but the other films
felt like the offered something a bit different and unusual. This one felt like
an old direct-to-TV sequel or special extended pilot to kick of a TV series.
Still fun, but without offering anything new.

That
said, it’s pretty astonishing to see the worldwide success of this franchise.
The Minions seem to really appeal universally, and I see quite a lot of
merchandise for them in Japan. This indifferent sequel became only the sixth
animated movie to gross more than $1bn worldwide – with Minionsbeing another. It’s in the top 25 highest-grossing films of
all time. Pretty crazy, but testament to good marketing and the groundwork lain
by a strong, well-made franchise.

Friday, 24 November 2017

Gumballis my go-to show to watch at the moment. It’s such
exuberant, silly fun with such likeable central characters and such joy in the
medium of animation. Not every episode is a hit but enough of them are that I’ll
always have fun in any viewing session.

The
season starts in a slightly sad way as the original voice actors pass the torch
to the new kids. Replacing kid actors is generally necessary in these kinds of
shows, though they seem to be letting Jeremy Shada keep voicing Finn long-term
since he replaced his brother in Adventure Time. In fairness, by the time the voice work for Gumball season 3 started, the boys’ voices had changed a lot, even
when they weren’t exaggerating it, and it was nice to even give them a send-off
rather than just making the switch behind the scenes. I’m not generally that
keen on meta-humour dominating a whole episode, and the season finale where the
cast contemplate selling out for money didn’t work for me, but in this case it
was sweet and worked well as a pretty original concept.

Otherwise,
the season is mostly more of the same. The kids get into scrapes with various
classmates and family members, struggle with allergies, try to watch scary
movies without Anaïs, or think up an imaginary friend. The show does a great
job of taking tried-and-tested concepts and subverting them, or sometimes
affectionately pastiching them. The show also does the surprise anticlimactic
ending even better than Adventure Time.

But
this season doesn’t just coast along doing the same old things. There’s a fair
bit of character development. Some background characters get more fleshed out,
with Sarah and Alan getting episodes centred on them, and one episode is even
centred on ‘extras’. There’s also quite an interesting side-story where
uninteresting background characters disappear into ‘The Void’, with one not
only being rescued from there but another becoming a much more major player
when he manages to escape.

Most
significant, though, is the development of Penny. Initially Gumball’s comedy
crush, the two of them have genuinely gotten closer, culminating in Penny
literally coming out of her peanut shell. It’s a very interesting development
and it’s sweet how the couple are still so awkward and it doesn’t end up taking
over Gumball’s entire life. Perhaps more interesting is the effect it has on
Darwin. He’s initially very jealous and protective of his best friend being
taken away from him, and his protestations of love for Gumball get pretty
ardent. It walks a nice middle ground where potentially gay kids could see him
as a perfectly normal boy with a gay crush (albeit on his adoptive brother,
which is a bit weird), yet it’s also completely possible to see his devotion as
a ‘bromance’. Religious groups can’t go crazy about it corrupting youth but at
the same time it leans towards the normalisation of if not homosexuality, then
dismantling the limits of what can be portrayed on kids’ TV in terms of
appropriate expression for boys.

Which is not to claim Gumball is spearheading a cultural revolution. It’s
just a nice background touch to a smart, entertaining and inventive TV cartoon.
Which I will certainly continue to watch.

Tuesday, 21 November 2017

I’ve
been slipping lately as a Ghibli completest. There are a few movies I haven’t
gotten around to seeing in the last few years, and one of them was this, When Marnie Was There – the second movie
from Yonebashi ‘Maro’ Hiromasa, who seems to be carving out a niche for himself
adapting whimsical, gentle-paced English children’s books from a generation
ago. With Arrietty and this movie, I
thought that was simply what he was instructed to do by Miyazaki, given that those
books are on his favourites list, but since Yonebashi and various others from
Ghibli have fractured off to found Studio Ponoc, he seems to be continuing the
trend even outside Miyazaki’s influence with Mary and the Witch’s Flower.

Yes,
When Marnie Was There is an
adaptation of a 1967 novel by Joan G. Robinson set in Norfolk. Honestly, though
it won some awards and was previously adapted for Jackanory, I’d never heard of it and it seems to have been out of
print until interest was revived by this adaptation. The sample chapters I’ve
read show a rather unlikeable protagonist and lots of patronising and overdone
renderings of the Norfolk dialect, but presumably the protagonist gets more
likeable and the story itself is a sweet and well-crafted one.

This
adaptation, transplanted to Hokkaido and its comfortable-looking temperate
summers (definitely considering spending a lot of time there next year), is
remarkably well-done and tasteful. It doesn’t have the bombast of Miyazaki’s
most prominent films and won’t make anything like their cultural impact, but it’s
a wistful and sweet story in the vein of Omoide Poroporo and thus makes it into my top five Ghibli films. Yonebashi seems
to have managed to capture that middle ground between the supernatural
fantasies of Miyazaki and the everyday dramas of Takahata, and the film
benefits greatly from that.

Twelve-year-old
Anna doesn’t fit in. She’s adopted and feels distant from her family, doesn’t
make friends easily, sometimes says very rude things when she feels cornered,
and as a girl apparently with some foreign blood – visible mostly in her eye colour-
feels like an outsider in her native land. She’s also asthmatic, and the doctor
thinks the air of the Hokkaido countryside will do her good, so she goes to
stay with relatives by the sea.

In
the new town, she’s drawn to a strange mansion down on the marshes. She meets a
girl called Marnie who is free-spirited, looks like a French doll and is virtually
held as a captive in her own home by her household staff. Anna and Marnie become fast friends, to the
point they profess their love for one another and it borders on the adorably
homoerotic. Anna is in some ways girlish but with her short hair, usual choice
of shorts and rather headstrong attitude has very appealing androgynous
characteristics. Marnie is more classically girlish, usually wearing pretty
dresses and loving to dance and twirl, but also gets down to some serious
rowing when she needs to. They’re lovely characters, suit one another very well
and their intimate friendship is a joy to see unfolding, even after the twists
are revealed and we come to understand everything.

The
film is understated and beautifully-done. Movements and expressions are
rendered in a lovely way and the setting is striking, even if but for a
windmill changed for a grain silo, this could very easily have still been
Norfolk. With a Japanese matsuri. The two lead characters reminded me strangely
of Shinku and Souseiseki from Rozen Maiden, which was sweet.

I
think this will mature not as one of Ghibli’s most iconic films, but one of
their more mature and understated. Certainly one I’ll enjoy rewatching in the
future.

Friday, 10 November 2017

In
the five years since I watched the first season of Gumball, it got a lot more popular. Clips from the show
occasionally pop up on Facebook, going a little viral. It’s fully incorporated
into Cartoon Network promotional material like its 25th anniversary
clip. It’s won a number of awards and generally entered into public consciousness
to a much greater degree. I’m pretty sure it will be remembered nostalgically
in a decade just like Powerpuff Girls
and Fairly Odd Parents are remembered
today.

I
actually watched a fair chunk of season 2 before I stopped for a few years.
Back then it was hard to find anywhere to watch the show. But I absolutely
loved the episode The Job, where the
show’s love of mixing animation styles is taken to extremes. It’s a beautiful,
fun episode with a whole lot of weirdness going on, and one of the most
inventive episodes of a show animation-wise that can ever have aired on TV.

Broadly,
though, the show continues in the same way as the first season. Short,
exuberant 10-minute episodes cover things like Gumball feuding with Banana Joe
over a chewed pen, going to see the simple life of a rather Armish-esque potato
or getting embarrassed over a stupid video of Gumball going viral.

The
Watterson parents get more fleshed out here. Richard becomes a little less
irritating and more sympathetic, even doing stupid things like getting into
petty quarrels with his neighbour or being too wet to kick out the partiers who
take over his house. We also get an insight into how he became the way he is,
with an appearance from his overbearing mother. As for Nicole, that tough-love
competitive spirit of hers reaches extremes, first in how far she pushes
Gumball in a paintball game, and later in her own refusal to lose, which
develops into her being some incredibly strong beast more or less unbeatable in
the established world.

Other
characters get more exploration too. Hector becomes more than just some feet
and shins. Carrie shows more of a dark side. Insane new girl Sarah gets her
introduction, though only seems a little obsessive in this season – and brings
with her a very amusing set of friends from another school who look and move
like 70s cartoons. Another human introduced is Santa, played with aplomb by
Brian Blessed, national treasure.

Then
there’s Gumball and Darwin, who were pretty well-developed from the start. They
remain two of the most joyful characters to watch in any cartoon – impulsive,
selfish and fun-loving Gumball paired with cute, sweet-natured, caring Darwin.
In one episode they explore their dynamic, Darwin wanting to take the lead
instead of following as the straight guy, and it’s an interesting examination
of their dynamic. They’re still totally adorable, and their relationship is
still very often homoerotic and has no qualms subverting gender expectations –
the boys are quite happy to dress up as girls for their fake TV show (adorably
rendered in anime style by Mike Inel online), hyperventilate into one another’s
mouths or comfort each other by hugging and stroking. It’s totally adorable.

And
on that note, this season pushes more boundaries than ever before. What this
show gets away with is considerably more surprising than Adventure Time’s ‘Get in his pants’ joke. Of course everything is
only implied – double entendres like “Did you see what he did to that guy’s
cherry”, or visual boundary-pushing like Gumball and the balloon boy Alan
meeting in the boys’ bathroom and Gumball having to reinflate him by, well,
blowing him up. And then coming out of the bathroom looking decidedly
disturbed. It pushes at what’s permissible and that’s one of its strengths.

Of
all the cartoons currently airing targeted at kids, it’s the one that appeals
the most to me. As an animation fan, in terms of humour, in the cuteness of the
characters, in the unpredictability of the episodes and in terms of subverting
expectations. The last two episodes in particular poke fun at the ideas of a
whole world being made of living things and how horrific that would be, and the
idea of cartoons resetting after each episode without consequences.

Friday, 3 November 2017

After
a longer time than expected, I got around to watching Kimi no Na Wa, Shinkai Makoto’s breakout masterpiece. And I have to
say, I see why it succeeded where his other films were restricted to fandom
and, to an extent, arthouse crowds. I’ve never been a great fan of his work, which
while often artful and in his early days a remarkable achievement for what was
basically an individual, never connected with me emotionally.

Yes,
what Kimi no Na Wa at last manages,
finally launching Shinkai into the leagues of Miyazaki, Takahata and Hosoda, is
to have heart. The story is a strange one and the gets bogged down in a rather
artificial drama in the final act, but what really matters is that the
characters are likeable and compelling – plus the setting has interesting
things to say about very different lifestyles in a changing Japan.

I
was a bit confused by the title of this film. Why na and not namae? I’ve
heard a variety of explanations from Japanese people – ‘It’s more formal and
sounds more like a real title’; ‘It has the nuance of your full name, because
they only knew given names’; ‘It feels uncomfortable to say “Kimi no Namae Wa?”’
(even though that’s the climactic line of dialogue in the actual script’; and
maybe most convincingly, Shinkai just used the title of an old radio drama from
1952, adapted into a movie trilogy in 1953-4 that was a huge hit back in the
day.

But
this is not an adaptation of an older work. It’s an original story that on the
surface is about a boy and a girl who swap bodies and live in each other’s
shoes for a day. Not just one day, but over and over again. At first they think
they’re dreaming, but begin to communicate with one another through phone
journals and other messages, and eventually try to meet one another – though
there is a lot that stands in the way of their coming together.

A
lot of the drama is rather superficial, with a whole lot of made-up rules for
this magical circumstance that it’s implied is connected to the power of a
local god. But that’s okay, because the overall narrative is really just a
vehicle for two things – the exploration of two characters, and their very
different circumstances. She is set to inherit the temple and trains as a
shrine maiden in a somewhat stifling small town where everyone knows one
another and the girls at school sometimes pick on her for having to do
embarrassing things like make sake the traditional chew-rice-and-spit-it-out
way. He is a busy city boy living in a small apartment and working as a waiter in
a restaurant, and despite his pretty face very inexperienced with women.
Judging from his reaction to an excursion, he’s also craving more spiritual
experiences.

It’s
oddly cute to see Taki, the boy, with Mitsuha’s feminine mannerisms, very
well-observed by the animators. Interesting that we’re introduced to him like
that, too. Observing gender differences is far less important, however, than
observing the social differences between the very different lives these two
lead.

The
film is also very beautiful. There’s some slightly jarring cel-shaded CG, but
mostly this is a real visual treat. Glorious panning shots, intensely detailed
backgrounds, masterfully-captured natural phenomena and even some explosions
make for a feast for the eyes.

And
while it’s somewhat on-the-fly and arbitrary, the film’s narrative makes for
some great emotional highs and lows and builds to a good strong climax. Combined
with really likeable characters and meaningful stakes, the result was good.

I
see that a live-action remake is in the works. Honestly, I don’t see what it
would add. In fact, I suspect it will lose the beauty and the
carefully-observed physical comedy. A great step forward in Shinkai’s career.

Wednesday, 4 October 2017

My
introduction to Rick and Morty was
the long, not particularly funny couch gag on The Simpsons. Nonetheless, the show has been a huge hit and is
constantly being referenced online and seems to be on track to become this
generation’s South Park– so I
decided to give it a go.

Honestly,
the friend I was watching it with and I almost gave up after three episodes. It
didn’t click. The show introduces its main characters, obviously riffing on Doc
and Marty from Back to the Future, which
was indeed the show’s starting point. However, going in its own direction, the
show has Rick and Morty as grandfather and grandson, with Rick an alcoholic sociopath
and Morty an overly naïve adolescent. Both are voiced by co-creator Justin
Roiland, who I know from voicing the annoying but amusing Earl of Lemongrab in Adventure Time, and his performances
take some getting used to. Morty stutters and whines, while Rick’s speech is
punctuated by annoying burps.

The
first episode seems to try way too hard. The humour is very adolescent, and the
audience is expected to laugh at things like Morty having to shove things up
his rectum and blowing up aliens in explosions of gore that probably seem edgy
to kids who have never seen the likes of Superjail
– with Rick having much in common with The Warden.

The
Lawnmower Man with dogs subplot in
the second episode amused me and made me think the show had potential – though I’d
already seen the most amusing part as a clip online without knowing what show
it was from – but the lazy gross-out humour of the third episode set inside a
body made it seem like the show had very little to offer. But after a few
friends strongly urged me to keep going, I persevered.

Now,
after all the available episodes, I can say I’m a bit of an unusual case. Rick
and Morty is one of those Marmite shows – either adored or reviled. People seem
to think it’s either the best show ever created or utterly worthless stoner-bait
liked only by the very sheeple the show likes to admonish to make itself look
cleverer. But for me, I think it’s pretty good. It has some great moments and
some utter dud episodes. Some of the ideas are thought-provoking, some unoriginal,
and some half-baked. Sometimes we’re just supposed to laugh at butts farting
green clouds. Again.

The
show really gets interesting when Rick’s solution to a problem gone completely
out of hand is simply to slip into another dimension and take the places of a
Rick and Morty who happened to die just them. There are after all infinite
universes, so if you can cross between them, why not? But this doesn’t just get
left there, it becomes continuity and takes a psychological toll on Morty – and
raises the question of whether Rick has done it multiple times before.

This
is where the show gets interesting. Of course, like most multiple-universe
sci-fi it really doesn’t begin to broach the real conception of infinity. The
show indicates there are a bunch of remarkable versions of the characters from
other universes, like a doofus Rick or a lizard Morty or even two Mortys who
dress like the characters from Gravity
Falls (in one of many references to that show, because the creator is
buddies with Roiland). But of course, in infinite realities there are infinite
versions of each of these, plus infinite that are not like them, with infinite
universes being created in infinite fractions of time from each and every
moment, so having just ‘a whole bunch including some quirky unique ones’ doesn’t
really cut it – even if most of the show’s best episodes are based on taking
this idea further to have, for example, an evil Rick and an Evil Morty, a ‘Citadel
of Ricks’ who decided to get together and in some cases exploit the rest, and
even jaded corrupt police officer Mortys showing around good-hearted rookie
Ricks.

Perhaps
the heart and soul of the show is trying to discover whether or not Rick has a
heart and soul. He’s decidedly an antihero, perhaps one of the most
reprehensible characters ever created, willing to create whole universes to
power his car battery and destroy them too, drunkenly devising Saw-like games
to slaughter people he doesn’t like, watching Morty writhe in pain with two
broken legs with little to no interest, and subjecting his family to endless
mind games and manipulations. Yet it’s very compelling for the viewer to
speculate that it’s all a façade for a deeper pain and yearning, a wish to be
accepted and for others to help him with his inner pain – which was at the
centre of the season 2 cliffhanger and remains interesting even after he illustrates
how getting caught was part of his plan. Witness one version sacrificing
himself to save Morty, or a flashback about his love for his wife and daughter
that it turns out he fabricates, or the close friend who reveals that his
exuberant random catchphrase is actually a cry for help. He even tries to zap
out his brains!

For
some reason, it tends to be the show’s most uninteresting and unfunny moments
that take off as the most popular, simply because they’re big, obvious moments.
Rick sending Morty on a dangerous mission to get him a drug that makes him do a
silly dance, or spontaneously coming up with a song called ‘Get Schwifty’, or
turning himself into a pickle. These seem aimed at just making stoners laugh at
how random and zany the show is, but I can’t say I find them funny at all.

I’ve
seen a lot of this humour before, too. Marvin from The Hitchhiker’s Guide has a lot in common with a machine shocked
that its purpose is to pass butter, perhaps with a dash of the toaster from Red Dwarf – which also has the ideas of
hallucinating a whole life only to see a ‘Game Over’ screen and an alternate
universe version of a cool character with a bowl cut and buck teeth. In fact,
most of Rick and Morty’s humour aims to be edgy and boundary-pushing, but it’s
actually all mostly very safe, on ground previously trodden by the South Parks and Family Guys of the world. Attempts to be edgy by joking about sex
robots and cuckoldry and of course that ultimate edgelord button, people having
traumatic memories of childhood sexual abuse, are sub-4chan attempts to shock,
and the one and only time I was surprised the show ‘went there’ was when it showed
drunk Rick rants about Israel – which was genuinely surprising and funny, with
the point being that the most feared and respected man in the universe feels
awkward and babbles excuses when it comes to the tension there. Though the most
recent episode glibly suggests peace was attained there by getting high.
Typical.

There’s
also some episodes that are total duds. Using interdimensional cable as an
excuse to just have the actors ad-lib only results in ‘You had to be there’
style moments, and those episodes were probably the show’s worst. At least the
montage of memories in season 3 brings with it the interesting moral question
of how many of Morty’s memories have been altered by Rick – including,
endearingly, any time that Rick messes up and gets embarrassed in front of
Morty.

For
all the faults I found with the show, though, what I really liked was how it
put its characters through cheesy sci-fi situations but actually allowed that
to have a deeper impact. Morty is changed by the knowledge that there are
myriad other universes and he’s expendable. Summer has the harrowing experience
of a machine taking ‘keep Summer safe’ to horrifying extremes. Beth has to
wonder if she’s only a clone who believes herself to be the real Beth. Jerry is
the show’s punching bag but has the curious experience of being put in a
position to help assassinate Rick. These people are altered by what they go
through, even if it turns them into much worse people ready to commit murder almost
as easily as Rick is. When Rick and Morty
shines is when it raises interesting questions about existence and purpose in a
multiverse where you are one of countless identical versions of yourself, if
you even exist at all and can trust your beliefs.

I’ll
watch all there is of Rick and Morty,
but honestly I would call it hit-and-miss at best, occasionally deep and
inspired, but far too often formulaic and unoriginal. I’d call it above
average, but not by much.

Saturday, 30 September 2017

I
thought that little kitten Chii’s animated adventures had come to an end after
the end of Chii’s New Address and the
single OVA that followed it. But a few years on, the show has been revived,
this time as a CG adventure from a studio called Marza Animation Planet - perhaps best known for animating the Vocaloids for the Hatsune Miku live parties.

The
show picks up more or less where Chii’s
New Address leaves off, even re-animating the events of the OVA, where
little Chii meets another kitten, the hilarious Kocchi – who is an interesting
example of the male tsundere. Unlike naïve,
hapless Chii he thinks he’s big and tough and even calls himself ‘ore-sama’,
and yet he’s still a clumsy little kitten too, making him the perfect foil for
Chii and a great addition to this cast.

Other
than this addition, plus Chii being reunited with her siblings Ann and Terry
(without knowing they’re related), it’s largely more of the same. Chii gets up
to mischief at home and outdoors, be it by messing with the computers at home,
chasing frogs and birds or getting lost out in the town after being chased by a
dog. Some other enjoyable episodes happen when big local tomcat Kuroi-no tries
to teach Chii to be a cat, which she’s pretty hopeless at.

Things
are episodic and cute, every episode ends with a game of ‘acchi-muite-hoi’ with
Chii and the production is all very slick and professional. There’s a nice song
by Perfume to open the episodes, with interesting mixed media effects, superb
voice acting and even some fun musical numbers.

Of
course, the visual change will be divisive. CG is no longer a novelty and generally
isn’t very welcome, lacking a lot of the charm of hand-drawn animation. It took
me a while to get used to this, and the humans certainly never escape looking
like an uncanny mixture of stop motion and video game characters, especially
poor little Yohei whose dot-eyes don’t transition well. But Chii herself
actually makes the transition very well and looks very sweet in this style, to
the extent that going back to watch the animated version, it all looked a bit
too rough around the edges. By the end I had adjusted to the style and very
much enjoyed it – though could have done without the two recap episodes with
creepy live-action episodes where a huge kigurumi Chii lumbers around the
animation offices and goes to the Japan Expo in Paris.

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

I
was looking forward to this. The LegoMovie was an unexpected joy, there’s more potential to mix franchises here
than anywhere else, and word of mouth was good. But honestly, I don't think
this matched up to its predecessor. It lacked the exuberance and anything-goes
freewheeling nature of that film, and had more one-note humour. Still, for
casual and hardcore fans alike, there was a lot to enjoy here.

Riffing
on the Batman of the first movie, all self-referential boasting, claims of
being awesome and deep emotional repression, there were a whole lot of great
points here. Having a full roster of Batman villains - and then one-upping them
with the big bads of numerous other franchises - was a whole lot of fun. A small scene with the Justice League gave some laughs too. The
big action setpieces were great to look at and often very inventive. And the
strange thing about comedy is that the more overt, exaggerated and silly you
make a character's hang-ups, problems and angst, the more directly you can
switch gears to actual pathos and touching character moments. Making the film
essentially about how Batman's bravado is all a front for his yearning for
family and companionship makes that very easy to do - especially when you pair
him with a Joker longing for acceptance, where the joke is that the
protagonist-antagonist relationship has a lot of parallels with a romantic
relationship.

So
all in all I wanted to enjoy it. I got most of the jokes and references and it
often raised a smile. Because it's a comedy it doesn't really matter that loose
ends aren't really tied up, like why the Joker didn't have to go back with the
rest of the baddies. I loved the little touches like Bane sounding like the
movie version and Robin's costume origin. It was also nice to have Barbara
Gordon written so strong and capable.

But
in all honesty, it wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. Everything was
superficial by design, so I ended up not connecting with anyone on the cast -
which wasn't the case with the Lego Movie. There was no way to
prevent Gotham getting totally torn apart so it felt like there wasn't much
more at stake after that, nor that the characters particularly cared about any
of the carnage in any case. And while the Lego Batman character was
great as a side-note to a wider story, he wasn't really that fun as a
protagonist.

Tuesday, 19 September 2017

After
waiting years for season 3 of Wakfu, tided over by the OVAs, Aux trésors de Kerubimand the Dofus movie, I was extremely excited for
these too-brief 13 episodes. Especially because making Ankama animations is
expensive and if the season isn’t a big enough success, it may be the last we
ever see of Yugo and co. So it was with great eagerness that I dove into the
World of Twelve once again. And ultimately, I have to confess that I’m a little
disappointed.

The
set-up was very promising – after the previous seasons and OVAs dealt with the
threats of the Eliacube, the mysterious Eliotropes and perhaps the biggest worldly
threat, Ogrest. In this season, I thought we would be turning to the final,
most powerful beings – the twelve gods. And while they were broached and were
central to the plot, they were in no way the season’s antagonists or a tangible
presence.

The
other major strands to be taken care of were centred on Yugo’s interpersonal
relationships. First, his shattered bonds with his brother Adamaï, teased as
the season’s antagonist after growing up to look very much like Frieza. Second,
his feelings for Amalia. The former actually led to a pretty roundabout and unsatisfying
character arc where it seemed unlikely Adamaï should have gone down the path he
chose or done the things he did to his former allies. The latter was stirred
and broiled this season and provided some of the best emotive moments, but of
course could not be resolved.

But
ultimately all of this took a backseat to a very disappointing overarching
story. The antagonist was intriguing at first but was soon revealed to be
rather uninteresting with a lame plan and borrowed power. Rather worse, his
plan revolved around that most tired and uninteresting of anime tropes, the
floor-by-floor tournament in a big tower. Not only was his motive unconvincing –
with none of what he planned for in the tower actually unfolding and it all
eventually just falling apart on him – it meant most of these precious final
episodes were spent on things like talking to a little girl about animals or
playing a weird physical pinball game with a creepy pantie fetishist. After the
Dofus movie kicked up the storytelling excitement so much I had high hopes for
this season, but ended up let down to the end.

There
also seemed to be a real lack of attention to detail. There’s a lot we just
aren’t told. What happened to Chibi? Why were there some demigods we didn’t
even get an introduction for? Who was going to replace Xelor, Hareboug? And did
Harebourg and Coqueline’s animals share the fate of the pocket dimension? What
happened in the Sadida kingdom after Amalia left it? Will Rubilax consider his
contract filled and seek freedom, even if he of course is just a big tsundere
and likes being around Pinpin? Couple all this with an unsatisfying cliffhanger
ending, some obvious recycled animation that highlighted a stretched budget and
way too much focus on Iop fights that really didn’t bring anything new to the
adventure and there was a lot of disappointment.

Which
isn’t to say it was all bad. Every episode was in some way a joy to watch and I
still love Wakfu in general and was
excited right until the end, even if I feel a little let down overall. If there’s
more, I will absolutely be watching it. It was nice to see Yugo just a little
grown up, having grown out of his weird bulgy forearms. And the kids, Elely and
Flopin, were a joy – Flopin was adorably soft and caring while Elely was her
father’s daughter, strong, bold and always upbeat. And even if only a little,
it was nice to finally have some Ruel backstory and development.

While
I miss Wakfu being a simple story of adventurers on a quest, moving it to more
serious and ambitious territory was absolutely a good move. But the moment the
show took everything to a tower in a pocket universe, with a vague plot about
suicide bombing a dimension we know next to nothing about, there was a severe lack
of emotional stakes and pretending Tristepin was going to die for the fiftieth
time wasn’t going to cut it. It’s also telling that some of the most moving
moments we saw were just visions inside the characters’ heads – especially inside
Yugo’s, where he’s tormented by old antagonists who always were more interesting than him.

I
really do want to see what happens to Yugo and the rest. I want to see Elely
and Flopin and the new baby reach their potential. I’d like to see them clash
with the gods and challenge them to be less complacent. I’d like to know what
can become of Yugo and Amalia. I’m still hugely invested emotionally in this
world and enjoy the episodes. It’s just that I had very high hopes and I feel a
little let down. Not because I feel my expectations were unrealistically high.
Just that I hoped Ankama would be able to at least move me as much as they did
with the Dofus movie with characters
that I care about more. But that wasn’t going to happen floor-by-floor in a
tower in a pocket dimension.

Wednesday, 2 August 2017

As
a lifelong fan of The Lion King, I
received the news of this series with mixed emotions. I was happy the property
was getting more attention and that I would see a continuation of a favourite
story, but of course the premise made me pause. So it’s a mid-quel during The Lion King 2 about Kiara’s little
brother…who just never gets mentioned at all by his family or friends after
that movie’s time skip? And plays a prominent role in Pride Lands politics with
his group of friends, many of them belonging to species never seen in the
movies, yet we have to accept all of them just vanish?

Well,
to enjoy the show you simply have to accept that aspect of it. And I very
quickly did, because I found myself liking the show in almost every way very
quickly indeed.

A
big part of that is that it’s very nostalgic. Not just because it’s obviously
based on The Lion Kingand the
animators have made great pains to emulate the style of the movie in modern
vector animation – particularly successfully when it came to the lions’ facial
animations, which are amazingly faithful to the cel-animated high-budget
original movie. But more because of the premise and the writing, which evoke
many other shows and properties of the past. With a fantastic voice cast where
every actor not only evokes his or her animal but has a mellifluous voice that
it’s a pleasure to listen to, I was reminded of Little Bear. The idea of young animals from different backgrounds
coming together to solve the problems of nature reminded me of The Land Before Timeand its sequels. The
brisk writing, humour and musical numbers that were sometimes inspired and
sometimes generic pap echoes the early My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And while it’s not really a positive, the
all-purpose overpowering deus ex machina of
‘The Roar’ put me in mind of the Sword of Omens in Thundercatsand its ability to fix just about any problem at the
end of the episode.

There
were jarring elements here. Fuli the Cheetah somehow doesn’t fit the aesthetic,
looking much more like vector animation than the rest of the cast. The show
starts out obliquely mindful of the fact that while they prize the Circle of
Life, these lions and cheetahs tear apart and eat the zebras and gazelles they
live alongside, it soon descends into a herbivore-good, predator-bad pattern
that conveniently leaves out how the lions actually eat. Despite this natural
division, there’s obviously a bit of care taken about racial insensitivity
here, too, for while the hyena bad guys still mostly sound like street gang
members, there’s also some good hyenas (who sound different) to show it’s not
because of their race that they’re
evil – which is a pretty good message to include, but gets conveyed in a rather
cumbersome way. And it was also strange and hilarious at first to hear Brick
from The Middle as Ono.

Hyenas
aside, I rather like the message of diversity that The Lion Guard brings, which is less simplistic than it may at
first appear. The premise is very inclusive – young Kion, Simba and Nala’s cute
mohawked son, is gifted with the supernatural Roar of the Elders, a roar which
seems to channel the forces of nature and the magic of generations of ancestors
and sends nasty hyenas flying off Team Rocket style. Scar once possessed this
roar, but lost it because he misused its power – and for some reason never
mentioned it in any of his appearances. It’s traditional for the lion who can
use the roar to assemble the Lion Guard, the members of the pride who are the
best there is at what they do – the Guard must comprise the fiercest, the
strongest, the bravest, the fastest and the keenest of sight.

Progressive Kion
doesn’t stick only to lions, but assembles his Guard from throughout the
pridelands – a keen-sighted egret, a swift cheetah, a bulky hippo, a fearless
honey badger and then Kion at the centre of it all. Why I like this is that it
celebrates diversity but also differences in cultures – each member has their
own strength, their own way of living and their own knowledge, different from
the others. They are diverse and fundamentally different from one another – they
don’t have to mash together to all be the best at everything, or convince
themselves they are all the same.

The
Lion Guard become a kind of police force and community support. They keep the
denizens of the Outlands at bay and help mitigate the effects of natural
disasters. Some original cast members make their appearances, Ernie Sabella
ever happy to reprise his Pumbaa role and James Earl Jones returning as Mufasa’s
readily-accessible ghost for the pilot
double-episode (a sound-alike taking up the reins later on). Jason Marsden,
Andy Dick and Lacey Chabert reprise their roles from The Lion King 2 in a highlight episode, and Cam Clarke returns not
as Simba but as a background vulture.

Some
of the episodes are inventive and original, like when Reirei the jackal teaches
the Guard about manipulation and two-facedness, or when aardwolves are mistaken
for hyenas and their absence ruins the local ecosystem. Others are a bit tired,
like when a boastful celebrity eagle turns out not to be what his legend
suggests he is, or when two annoying gorillas have to be escorted back to their
homeland. A stronger season finale also would have been a good idea.

But
I have to say, I think The Lion Guard
is the best show for young kids currently airing that I know of. In terms of
production quality, writing, world-building and acting, it’s ahead of the rest.
Season two has just begun, and I hope the show can actually develop, as it could
potentially stagnate quickly, but so far I rather like what I’ve seen!

Wednesday, 26 July 2017

Natsume Yuujinchoucontinues to be a slightly-under-the-radar success
story in Japan. I see toy Nyanko-senseis all over the place, but I have to say
even there, I’m not sure if they know the character or just bought what they
thought was a cute generic cat. Certainly there are a lot of fans watching this
anime, going to the themed cafes and buying the figurines, but it simply doesn’t
feel like a big anime, in the way
that Yuri on Ice or Attack on Titando.

Yet
it’s continued into a sixth season now, sadly only 11 episodes but going
strong. No cute fox-boy episode this time, but a lot of new development for
Natsume himself, then interesting twists at the end where Natsume finally
shares the secret of his book of friends with another human, plus starts to
think about his grandfather.

The
show remains episodic, of course, as it always has been. Natsume and his supernatural
friends help out more interesting youkai, from a funny old fellow who leaves
flower patterns on rocks and has lost his apprentice to an interesting crow-boy
who fell in love with a human but left her without closure – only for her to
trick him in a fun reversal of the usual folklore stories.

The
art has settled now – it doesn’t have its own clear style, but it always looks
pleasant. Something that wasn’t guaranteed in the first couple of seasons.
Natsume is pretty and likeable and oddly touchy-feely with his friends and
mentors in this season – perhaps aimed at the female fanbase.

There
was very little real development except in the final double-episodes here, but
Natsume is getting inexorably drawn into the world of the exorcists – and I
want to know what happens when he can no longer escape their pull.

Tuesday, 25 July 2017

After
doing well with the playful moods of movies like Paranormanand The Boxtrolls,
this time Laika have aimed for epic. Though they don't eschew humour, they aim
for a serious fantasy tone by telling the story of one-eyed Kubo, child of a
great samurai and a celestial spirit, but enemy to the rest of his family.

I
really respect this change of direction and Laika in a serious mode has long
been something I've wanted to see. I was a bit dubious about the fantasy-Japan
setting, a little overdone just now, but it allowed for some beautiful locations and mythologically-inspired setpieces.

Kubo
succeeds with its characterisation and its action sequences. The characters
have multiple layers and often memories they themselves have forgotten, so
their development is interesting. Plus this is Laika's foremost triumph,
visually. Outsize monsters, magical effects, fights with swords, bows and
sickles and amazingly fluid paper-folding effects add up to a feast for the
eyes.

A
couple of negative points for me would be in character design. I understand the
link between kabuto beetles and samurai kabuto, but Beetle could have looked a
fair bit less goofy. And Kubo himself had a design that looked nice as a
concept drawing and in the traditional animation during the credits, but in the
actual movie looked rather unattractive - I'm quite sure the movie would have had
wider appeal with a better design for the protagonist.

Plus,
incredible though the achievement is here, the more polished and smooth
stop-motion looks, the closer it gets to looking like CG. If they are
indistinguishable, one starts to wonder what the point of stop-motion is.

Not
that we're at that point yet, and this movie pushed more boundaries than ever.
But for all that it had the right ingredients and an intriguing cast of
characters, I wanted to love them and there was just not enough humanity in
them for that. Still, I am very eager indeed that Laika continue down this path
and make more serious epic animations with their own unique tone to them.

Monday, 24 July 2017

This
beautiful, reverent, affectionate and historically accurate Japanese movie
almost slipped me by – not as connected as I once was to news from the world of
anime, I heard about it only because it was on the plane during my trip back to
England. And I’m very glad I caught it, because it was superb.

Crowdfunded,
helmed by a director I’ve never heard of (though I’ve seen other works he’s
been affiliated with) and produced by Studio Mappa who thus far are mostly
known for the far less serious Yuri on Ice, this is perhaps an unlikely hit, but it hits all the right notes. It
treads similar ground to Grave of the Firefliesand will of course be compared with it in just about every
review, but has a far less focused and relentless tone, instead giving a far
lighter touch and a whimsical method of building up its characters that
actually reminded me of French filmmaking.

Based
on a manga, this film tells the story of Suzu, a simple and rather childlike
young woman who comes from a small community on the outskirts of Hiroshima. In
the years before the war, she gets married to a young man she met only once
before and doesn’t remember, then goes to live in nearby Kure, a naval port.

There,
she contends with being a bit hapless in a new community away from her family.
Her new husband has a sick mother, a big house and a domineering older sister
to contend with, and her attempts to please them and do her best are very
endearing – though she’s scatterbrained and has a habit of tilting her head
when she forgets things.

Of
course, eventually the war comes and brings with it at first inconvenience, and
later tragedy. Naive Suzu retains her gentle nature through personal injury,
large-scale tragedy and the unfamiliar aspects of life in a military town, like
when she’s tempted by an extramarital affair or when she first encounters
prostitutes.

The
things she must endure are pretty horrific, but her reaction is believable –
neither breakdown nor numbness, but a mixture of sorrow, guilt at not being
able to do more to help others, and of course retaining her underlying
personality really give this piece a believable and deeply likeable centre. The
things she has to endure are terrible, as one would expect from a wartime
drama, but there’s a rare subtlety in how they affect her, here.

The
film is also beautiful. Suzu’s talent is for art – one of the funniest moments
in the film comes when the military police suspect her of espionage and her
feelings are hurt when everyone else finds the very idea hilarious – and
sometimes that gets reflected by the artistic choices of the movie. The images
of rabbits in the surf and the silly stories of childhood coming to life
provide beauty or levity that enhance the artistry of this film.

Of
course, it’s a heavy movie, but the point is to focus on war’s affect on
ordinary people. Suzu knows nothing of Hitler or Manchukuo, is a product of her
society with next to nothing to gain from Japan’s military role in the war, and
is far more concerned with living as well as she possibly can. This isn’t a
grand political statement, it’s an effort to capture the reality of a time and
place that was to be shattered by the Bomb.

Delicate, nuanced and well-researched, it’s a must-see for anyone
looking for art-house anime.

Wednesday, 12 July 2017

After
realising season 7 had ended some time ago, I binge-watched the rest of season
8. I have to say, it brought with it a lot of what I had hoped for in the last
season.

Yes,
there were some strange throwaway episodes, like diving after a sea lard and
finding a strange new world, or the return of James Baxter the horse (though I
did like how he got his name). But most of the season was dominated by two much
longer, more intriguing plotlines - the development of the elemental guardian plotline
that reaches fruition in season 9, but more importantly, Susan Strong providing
Finn with a link to find the rest of the humans - and his mother.

This
plotline leads to the final lengthy arc of this season, with its own unique
introduction and a bleak portrayal of the future of humanity. Once again, we
see the idea of humanity preferring life in virtual reality and getting trapped
inside. But Finn's mother and the rest of the humans are part of a different
society, perhaps one that works a little too well.

Finn
gets some fine emotional moments and development, and it had already been a
strong season for him as we got more exploration of the idea of alternate Finns
being trapped in his swords. Finding his mother and of course ending up
confronting problems she'd caused before eventually having to return home
provided some great emotional highs and lows. Plus Susan became a fully-fledged
character too, with her own past to confront, and had a cathartic reunion in
the end.

Now
that both Finn's parents are well-established and he's growing up, there aren't
so many loose ends left to tie. I think the next season bring Princess
Bubblegum's darkness and the loose ends that remain in Simon's stories to an
end, and then I feel like we might finally come to the end of this
brightly-coloured, often rather dark cartoon that from its beginning has been
squarely targeted at stoners and adults. I hope it draws to a natural close
before too much longer. There's no point stringing it out until it gets stale,
and while this season has been very satisfying indeed, I don't think there's
that much more remaining in plot terms to bring out these kind of heavy hits in
future.

Monday, 10 July 2017

The
last few seasons of Adventure Timehave
seen very sporadic release schedules. Sometimes there’s a slew of episodes all
coming out in a month and sometimes there’s nothing for weeks and weeks. It’s
not clear where seasons begin and end most of the time, and I was under the
impression that season 7 ended with the episodes ‘Preboot’ and ‘Reboot’, mostly
because they took five months to come out after the previous episodes – but now
I find out that’s midway through season 8 and I should have done my season 7
impressions in the March of 2016. Oh well.

Season
7 was actually the time that the show lost me somewhat, with season 8 episodes
only recently having piqued my interest again. This season’s major events
include Princess Bubblegum getting deposed by the cowardly King of Ooo, a
lengthy exploration of Marceline’s past and where she got her different powers,
and a real visit to the surreal parallel dimension Farmworld. There are also
more hints to Simon’s past, with Betty at large in the present day.

But
honestly, it’s partly the unpredictable release schedule, partly the feeling
that the show’s major ideas are now played out and partly a few dud episodes like
trying to figure out underwater political intrigues with blowfish and
porpoises. There wasn’t much badly wrong here, but a lot of momentum felt sapped
by the longer storylines, which unlike those of season 8 didn’t really feel
like the advanced the plot of characters very much, especially Marceline.
Princess Bubblegum got a little more depth, though.

In
fact, the problem with this season was that unlike the seasons surrounding it,
with major arcs largely focused on Finn, there’s not enough contrast between
light and shade. Marceline is all darkness, Bubblegum only treading between
bright pink and grey. What defines the current Adventure Time, a very long way out from its quirky initial pilot, is
that it can contrast its silliness with surprising depth and ambition. I can
see that this season brought to the fore some of the cleverer elements thought
up for secondary characters, but they really pale beside Finn or the Ice King’s
stories. And that leaves this season a little sub-par. But certainly, it
remains fun to watch.

Monday, 3 July 2017

This show began to lose its way a little by taking a show with the central premise
of being believable and down-to-earth and introducing whacky and far-fetched
scenarios, and that really showed in season 7.

The
season had too much that was too far-fetched. Bobby got fooled into making
drugs. Dale leads the gang in hunting Chuck Mangione through a megastore at
night. A pork magnate tries to transform Luanne into a woman from an
advertising illustration, and himself into a pig. Instead of small-town foibles
and recognisable characters, the show starts dealing with people who think they’re
wizards, sexy female pest exterminators, stereotyped bikers and vision quests. I
guess dancing with dogs just about passes as familiar ground for middle-class
America, but it’s a weird story.

There’s
one great episode, though, finally filling in a pretty big gap in a show about
Texas, which sees Hank embarrassed when his dog Ladybird appears to be racist.
It raises some pretty important questions about this setting, previously left
at ‘Are you Chinese or are you Japanese?’, so it was good to see development at
last.

That
aside, Season 7 mostly left me with the feeling that the show was in decline, I
have to say. However, King of the Hill
got back on track somewhat in the eighth season.

Yes,
there are still some parts that go a little over-the-top, like Luanne
protesting from the mouth of a giant mechanical mascot, a TV star coming to
stay or Hank finding himself having to decide whether or not to let part of the
town flood in a downpour of rain, but the vast majority of these episodes are
believable scenarios about everyday problems – like Bobby wanting to get out of
showering after sports or Hank getting a bad back.

The
character of Peggy is going a little too strange at this point. She was
originally a very subtle character, a little too full of herself yet very slow
to read between the lines, but in episodes about her getting a chance to be an
artist or taking pictures of a Flat Stanley doll, she crosses the line to being
outright delusional and probably psychotic. She provided the highlights of
several past seasons, but now she’s just a little too much. I suppose it’s an
example of Flanderisation.

There
are extremely big-name guest stars in this season. Brad Pitt has a lot of fun
as Boomhauer’s brother in a performance that may as well have just been Mike
Judge speaking in a slightly different register. Lindsey Lohan, early in her
career, plays a love interest for Bobby. And then there’s Johnny Depp hamming
it up as a conceited yoga instructor. None of them get in the way of the
episode or draw undue attention, and it’s pretty likely only very big fans
would recognise any of them before the credits. Ben Stiller also has a role as
an annoying guy who thinks he’s far funnier than he is…meta humour, there, perhaps?

Some
very memorable episodes worked out well here, like Hank hiring a big rig to
play at being truckers for a while, or Bill managing to be popular by
pretending to be gay – which sounds like it would be offensive but of course
only highlights the ridiculousness of exaggerated perceptions of minorities.

At this stage there is a slight feeling of the show being played out. I’m
not sure what the remaining 5 seasons will bring to the premise. But I’m still
willing to find out, and the show remains a fun, now comfortingly familiar,
piece of TV.

Monday, 19 June 2017

Season 2 of Shingeki no Kyoujin was woefully short, especially as it didn’t feel like it was that far above the rest of the crowd in terms of production budget or ambitiousness. There were some nicely-animated sequences, many of them strange things like Christa deciding to do battle, but there were some decidedly clunky parts as well, especially when it came to CG.

But if it feels woefully short, that means it’s enjoyable, and this second season certainly was. Absolutely one of the most prominent anime around just now, its popularity is backed by an intriguing setting and several layers of mystery.

This season brought us a lot of revelations – why Ymir is dotes so much on Christa, the identity of the most iconic abnormal titans (revealed in a brilliantly anticlimactic way), how the mindless titans are made and the true extent of Eren’s powers. Interestingly most of the season revolved around a plotline where Eren is a particularly grumpy damsel in distress. There are also new mysteries, like how the wall was made and by whom now that new details have been revealed, the identity of the beast titan and perhaps more about the smiling titan too. Then there’s the long-standing mystery of what Eren’s father did, and why.

Of course I want more. Much more, and quickly. But I’ll also wait patiently. I read a few manga chapters in advance but spoiled only the cliffhangers from that point, not any of the larger mysteries, and I intend to enjoy them animated first. I can make a few predictions based on what we’ve learned so far, but I can stress that these are not spoilers, only my guesses. Still, if you don’t want to read my speculation or haven’t finished this season, please look away now!

-I think the beast titan is either Eren’s father or someone else very close to him

-Since we’ve seen people can turn into titans, I think that more of the main cast will get titan powers later, especially Mikasa, Armin and Levi

-Everything has been engineered by people, who probably live in a separate society ruled by the beast titan, and there’s going to be a huge battle against them

-This season’s antagonists are probably going to be fodder for the big bads of the next arcs

It will be interesting to see if any of these are true or if I’m way off. Either way, it will be fun!

Welcome to Adziu's small corner

Welcome to my little blog, here in this small corner.
Over the years I have seen a few hundred animated series and movies, and the purpose of this blog is to house my impressions. This is not intended to be a daily blog with impressions of each episode: I write my thoughts only after viewing something complete. Several have been imported from previous blogs dating back to 2005 - as well as drawing from journals from as early as 1999!
Now, please do sit, enjoy the fire, have a mug of something warm and put in a comment or two.